Freeing myself from my eating disorder, one day at a time

Tag: bulimia

After thinking long and hard about the type of awareness that is important in relation EDs I have concluded that acknowledging the wind/gas issue is one of my priorities!

I’m getting back to regular eating after a bit of a blip (I let jars back into my life and have pretty much eaten toast and PB/jam/marmalade for most meals for a few weeks) and my stomach/bowels are not happy with me. I’m trying really hard to be positive but the stinkiness is trying its best to ruin my day.

I would like to apologise to all the people in my real world who have had to suffer the smells with me. I have no control over it. It sucks. It is one of the rough bits of recovery no one talks about.

So here’s my awareness raising – I’m pretty much farting my way to recovery, and yes it’s gross but I am trying not to be ashamed of it!

It’s Eating Disorder Awareness Week which brings with it inevitable reflection for many of us who have experienced EDs. It’s natural for us to want to use our own stories as a means of creating awareness. This can be very useful, but it is worth spending the time thinking about how to do it in a constructive way and think about what kind of awareness our actions might actually create.

Posting an underweight to healthy weight before and after picture reinforces the misconception that you need to be underweight to have an eating disorder (you don’t)

These pictures are also likely (but not always) to be ‘most dramatic’ for those with anorexia- this reinforces the idea that anorexia is the primary/most common eating disorder (it’s not)

These pictures don’t create any awareness that EDs can be experienced by those in larger bodies (they can)

Even pictures of people of moving from ‘small’ body to larger body, or ‘regular’ size body to larger body or ‘large ‘body to larger body (basically all combinations!) suggest that EDs are just about bodies and weight (they’re not)

Giving details of weight, severity, calories restricted etc fuels the comparative nature of EDs for those still suffering, and could suggest to someone reading that you have to be eating a certain amount, or weight a certain amount or have experienced certain symptoms to be concerned (you don’t – EDs present in all sorts of ways)

Glamourising severity (however determined) may make people who developed EDs but received early intervention which worked and prevented them developing more serious presentations more reluctant in sharing their story. This therefore undoes the work that EDAW is trying to achieve- we need more stories of how early intervention worked, not less. Severity is not a badge of honour, recovery is.

Discussing the illness without discussing recovery does not create any awareness of how difficult recovery is, and how much support might be needed from family/ friends/ general society. Tell people about what helped, about how structured eating was necessary, about how talking about behaviours such as binging/ purging reduces shame, about how you need accountability from your support system, or whatever it is that is helpful for you. Try not to make this only food focused.

Similarly to above, discuss what helps in terms of services. Being inpatient is one kind of treatment, please don’t equate this to severity and glamourise it. Discuss how you found a knowledgeable GP/ primary care doctor (after a few goes probably!). Discuss how regular appointments helped keep you on track. Discuss how recovery can be messy and stop and start. Discuss how voluntary organisations provide additional support (e.g. groups) not available elsewhere. Discuss the self-help literature which helped (and not those which might harm). And if you haven’t received any of this – discuss how this is frustrating and ask how you might be able to contribute to change.

Equating recovery with muscles/ strength (i.e. photos from the gym or at home) again equates the illness with the body only, and suggests that the primary benefit of recovery is a muscular figure which diminishes all the other amazing benefits that come with recovery, not to mention the fact that many people don’t want to, or can’t achieve this physique.

Eating Disorders are horrific illnesses, those of us suffering and those caring for us know that. This week is an opportunity for us to share that with the world, but with that comes responsibility for what type of awareness we create. Please think carefully.

One of my recurring negative voices is “you never did anorexia probably, you were never thin enough, you were never sick enough, bulimia is an eating disorder to be embarrassed about, you couldn’t even do anorexia properly, no one cares about a bulimic etc etc etc.

I’ve never quite got rid of this voice, and while I can recognise it as not having a useful place in my life, it’s always like a low hum in the background.

Every now and again something happens to crank up the volume on it and today it was this:

This headline came up on my news feed (yes I need to clear my browsing history so the internet stops highlighting this stuff). It is is the relation to the the new BBC3 show ‘Overshadowed’ which while very good, and important, is the latest addition to a recent wave of anorexia shows/films.

I read it and thought to myself, you know what, actually we need to be talking about other eating disorders. We need to be talking about bulimia. We need to be talking about binge eating disorder. We need to be talking about the atypical presentations of anorexia and bulimia, we need to be talking about unspecified eating disorders.

We need to be talking about the disorders that are not a priority for treatment funding or research funding. We need to be talking about the eating disorders that the very people who suffer with them don’t even want to talk about. We need to normalise these illnesses to take away the insufferable immense deep dark shame that they can result in. I will talk about my periods of anorexia, but I won’t talk about how I would drive out of town to a supermarket to not be caught buying binge food. I will tell you about how cold I was when restricting, but we won’t discuss details of how to throw up into a plastic bag in your wardrobe without it leaking. I sought help when my weight reached a magical threshold that might make people pay attention, but no one would comment on my over-exercise if my thighs and belly are wobbling when I run. I cannot verbalise ‘I have an eating disorder’ at the moment because I am far too afraid that the response from a person who is educated by media such as above will be ‘but you’re not thin’.

Then, just to wind me up even more, I saw this:

Yes- it’s that hoodie. The slogan is wholly inappropriate, no one will disagree about that. Yet I’ve been more disappointed by the articles that have been written about it. I know I know these are quickly written response to capture a passing barely-news story but the fact that anorexia is the default go-to just reinforces that negative voice. Most of the stories are about how this hoody trivialises anorexia, how it’s disrespectful to people with anorexia, how anorexia is far more than self-control, about how we need to educate people about anorexia more. Throughout this, there are barely any referencing to bulimia. The hoody is far more insulting to the illness of bulimia but no one seems to want to talk about that – but is that again due to the shame that the illness can carry – that we’re far less likely to raise our hands and say ‘bulimia sucks too (and I have it)’.

Okay, rant over, I just needed to get the crazy out of my head. I know this is something I have to work on, and I’m aware the above rant is definitely not a well-researched critical appraisal of modern media- it is just my thoughts going ‘arrrrgggghhhh’.

Somehow I have made it to this point in my treatment/ recovery without really having to address ‘ED rules’. Inadvertently I have addressed some of them which had a more direct impact on my meal plan and weight e.g. carbs, eating times etc. and I guess both me and my counsellor figures I had got through this challenge and am living quite ‘rule-free’.

However, I am now at the stage where I am fairly compliant with structured eating so we are working on episodes where things have gone a bit awry and I’ve lapsed into behaviours such as restricting/ bingeing/ purging (vomiting and over-exercising). These are waaaay less frequent than they were, which is great of course. If we take a week to have 42 opportunities (7 days x 6 meals/snacks) I’m on approximately a 60-70% success rate. Ideally though I should be getting through some weeks at 100% and reducing these lapses but it’s yet to happen.

When reviewing my food diary in the session before last, my counsellor was trying to figure out why I’d restricted at certain points, what was the reason behind missed meals etc. I explained these blips with the usual reasons such as ‘hadn’t been shopping so didn’t have anything suitable in’ ‘only had a banana left and I’d already eaten a banana ‘oats are not safe anymore because I binged on them’ ‘was going out for dinner so was anxious about calories’. My counsellor, being the expert that she is, shut this down pretty much straight away and told me this was just ED spouting rules at her and she didn’t need to listen to it until we were going to tackle it, so she tasked me with writing a list of ‘ED rules’ before my next session.

At my next session I arrived with quite the list (I won’t share them here because I don’t want to be causing any ED comparisons!). She read through the pages (yes, plural) and just looked up at me and said ‘Well no wonder you haven’t recovered more if you still have these in your head’. She seemed a bit perturbed that I had never been challenged on some of these before by other therapists/ nurses. This is probably partly due to the fact that I have squirmed my way out of tough things with previous therapists (e.g. food diaries, weighing etc.). When they pushed me on this and told me I had to comply to stay with them I just quit -in fact that’s how this blog started! I think it also might that when being treated as an outpatient no-one actually sees me at mealtimes, and as I have always successfully restored my weight maybe it hadn’t seemed necessary. While the thought of addressing these rules is terrifying (picture me in the session sobbing I JUST CAN’T EAT FOOD ON A PLATE AT HOME WHY DOES IT MATTER WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE!), I can see that the fact that I had that reaction is exactly the reason why I need to start challenging them!

A part of me wants to argue that it doesn’t seem necessary because I’m at a healthy weight, but then the rational bit of me knows full well that you can still be very disordered whatever your weight. Would I say to someone else that those rules are fine? Even if they weren’t affecting my behaviour I need to address them so they can stop infecting my mind. Most of my rules read like a history of diet approaches and mentality, and if that ethos still has a place in my head then I will never be free. I need to get rid of the weeds and the roots.

So the time has come to face the fear. I have two rules to tackle this week: teaspoons and plates – I’ll keep you updated on my progress – but anyone that might be triggered feel free to stay away – and anyone that is reading this thinking ‘hmmm yeah maybe I do have a few rules that I’ve never addressed’ then I’ve my fingers crossed for your progress too.

I’ve woken up this morning feeling soooo much better. It was like I needed to let it all out last night and now I can start again with a clean slate. It sounds weird but I find self-harm can do that for me. It seems that I let everything build up and then ‘pop’ it releases. I just need to figure out how I can let it out little by little rather than it being a big explosion. As the saying goes ‘I am still learning’

I go to bed tonight with a sore throat, a heavy heart, wet eyes and bleeding skin.

This isn’t what I wanted for my life. I thought I was stronger than this right now. I thought if I kept fighting it would be okay.

I know this is just a knock. I know it’s a bad day, a bad night. I know I will wake up tomorrow regretful but renewed. I know I will keep going, but right now I can’t help but think that this is not what I wanted for my life. It doesn’t matter though, what I think tonight, what matters is tomorrow morning getting up and facing it all again.

I will wake up in the morning and face it all again because that is what recovery is, step by step, day by day. What you do everyday matters more than what you do once in a while, and everyday I shall try.

Tonight will pass and tomorrow will come, at least I can be sure of that.

I’m going out for dinner with friends tonight and I’ve been super anxious about it. I’m really trying not to purge at the moment but going out for meals is always a difficult one.

I don’t want to eat too much and then purge.

I don’t want to not eat enough so that I come home and binge and purge.

I don’t want to drink too much that my mood plummets.

I want to be able to enjoy time with my friends and not be obsessing over food//weight/body thoughts.

I’m in a panic trying to find something to wear that I feel comfortable with and I’ve already made myself late.

Some days I can breeze through this, and some days like today it just really gets me. These are good friends. Both know about my ED history and one is aware it’s a little more current than historic at the moment, I don’t know if that’s why. The reason doesn’t really matter though as I am going to